West Point Antifa Soldier and His Mentor/Professor

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

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West Point Launches Investigation over Its Handling of Communist Soldier

by Kristina Wong5 Oct 2017

West Point is launching an investigation into how it handled the case of a former student who graduated last year despite the school being alerted by a faculty member of his angry, anti-military, and pro-communist sentiments in 2015.

Spenser Rapone graduated from West Point in 2016 and is currently under investigation by his Army command after he posted pictures of himself last week advocating for communism while in his West Point uniform, which is prohibited by Army regulations.

…Moreover, CDT Rapone’s posts indicate he hates West Point, the U.S. Army, and indeed this country.”

“Members of the military who harbor anti-American views and express their desire to harm our country and its leaders are unfit to serve and defend our nation,” he said.

Rapone attended West Point from 2012 to 2016 and was then assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. He began Ranger School in February 2017 but did not complete it.

According to SOFREP, he failed one of the phases of the school and became so irate with the school commanders that he was made to start the entire process over, after which he made the decision to leave — another black mark on his record.

Exclusive: West Point Professor Who Mentored Antifa Soldier on Administrative Leave

By Kristina Wong28 Sep 2017

The adviser is Rasheed Hosein, a professor of Middle East history, who was in charge of Second Lieutenant Spenser Rapone’s development at West Point.

(Credit: usma.edu staff biography)

According to photos on Rapone’s Facebook page, he became close to Hosein, a Ph.D. in Islamic history from the University of Chicago. The two appear to have traveled together to the Taj Mahal, India in March 2014 and maintained a close relationship until Rapone graduated in May 2016, according to pictures posted on his Facebook page.

Also during that time, Rapone’s Facebook posts grew increasingly radical and leftist.

On August 7, Rapone posted a photo on his Instagram account of himself in his Army uniform wearing a Democratic Socialists of America Membership nametag that says, “official socialist organizer.”

Sometime last year, he posted a picture on Instagram of an Antifa flag in his room next to a print of Che Guevara. “New room decor … until it’s flying proudly in the streets. #AntiFa,” he wrote, according to a picture obtained before he took down his account.

Meanwhile, Rapone’s father, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania Treasurer Richard Rapone, disavowed his son’s political views on his public Facebook page.

He wrote, “As a young man, Spenser personified patriotism and in high school was a member of the Civil Air Patrol.”

He explains that Spenser did not get into West Point right away, so he enlisted in the Army after high school and was later deployed to Afghanistan before attending West Point.

His father wrote “It’s my belief when he returned back from Afghanistan there was a notable difference in his political views. Spenser is my son and I love him dearly, however, I do not like nor condone his politics, his actions or behavior.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wants the Army to remove an officer who posted pictures of himself on social media promoting pro-communist messages, and is asking the United States Military Academy to consider rescinding his degree.

Rubio sent a letter to acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy on Tuesday to complain about 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone’s conduct, and to ask whether West Point’s administrators or faculty knew about his pro-communist views. Rapone is now an infantry officer in the Army.

Infantry officer in the US Army. The views expressed in my work are my own and do not reflect the position of the Department of Defense. Troop Left ?

Aug 16

The Confederate Collaboration of West Point

Following the events in Charlottesville, Virginia in which a united left of socialists and anarchists pushed back the fascist menace that murdered Heather Heyer, a groundswell of emancipatory activity continues to grow. The toppling of the Confederate Soldiers Memorial in Durham, North Carolina has sounded the death knell for any and all displays of Confederate aggrandizement in the United States as well as abroad. Yet, the shadow of the Confederacy and its efforts to preserve slavery is not limited to the southern United States. From Seattle to Pennsylvania, the embodiment of white supremacy and racial violence against black people can be found just around the corner. But in this piece, I would like to focus on a specific place that preserves the Confederate legacy not often-discussed: my alma mater, the United States Military Academy. In every corner of West Point, New York, one can readily discover white supremacist iconography and visual rhetoric. There are some that stand out more than others. As we shall see, these sordid displays of the worst aspects of American history reify a profoundly racist culture that has existed since the inception of this country. In military parlance, my task here is to raise consciousness through the identification of these various memorials, tributes, and pieces of art; my purpose, however, is for these vile displays of racial oppression to be cast into the dustbin of history once and for all.

Let us begin with a brief tour. Traveling from Highland Falls, through the main entrance of Thayer Gate, one of the first structures that greets you is the hulking Lee Barracks, named of course for the most famous of slaveowning Confederate generals, both a graduate of West Point and its former superintendent, Robert E. Lee. Just across the way from that you see Reconciliation Plaza Memorial, featuring a granite sculpture of Lee’s head alongside a sappy, falsified, ahistorical narrative (more on this later). Thereafter, the cadet library, Jefferson Hall, prominently displays a nearly six-foot-tall painting of Lee. Perhaps most egregious of all, however, is the Lee painting located in the residence of the Superintendent of USMA (Quarters 100), in plain sight for any and all visitors. Travel in any direction on the campus, and sooner or later you’ll be confronted with the Confederacy. Not just visually, either. The West Point Band routinely plays cadets into the mess hall to the tune of “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” an 1861 march celebrating the secessionists’ will to preserve slavery. The Confederate situation at West Point does not just raise a question of mere theatrics or rhetorical flourishes, but of politics and history. This is a war of position.

There can be no room to abide the sordid legacy of the Confederacy. While neo-fascism continues to spread in the United States, from the likes of alt-right ghouls such as Richard Spencer to the latest incarnation of white ethno-nationalist militias, fascism has already been here for a long time. Any semblance of honoring the figures and movement that sought to permanently shackle human beings as property only further emboldens the far right. Of course, the centrists, liberals, and conservatives who fetishize an abstract, non-material idea of free speech plead that the removal and/or destruction of Confederate monuments is an erasure of history. This is pure intellectual dishonesty. The United States Civil War was fought over slavery. Full stop. Therefore, we must take down the structures which reify a profoundly racist legacy, if we are to have any sense of history at all. This endeavor is our collective historical moment.

There can be no reconciliation with the Confederate States of America. Here, I would also like to emphasize that the condemnation of these monuments has everything to do with the Confederates’ being slaveowners, and nothing to do with disloyalty to the United States. Historically speaking, West Point’s Reconciliation Plaza evokes a white supremacist narrative that served as the climax of D.W. Griffith’s silent film The Birth of a Nation, in which white males of the North and the South reunited in order to carry out retributive violence against black people. That white people desired revenge against black people speaks to the grotesque fantasy perpetuated by this film. This “reconciliation” mythology, alongside Jim Crow laws, and the so-called Lost Cause of the Confederacy, is one of the many forces which advocated the continued subjugation of black people in America. We bear witness to the consequences of the reconciliationist narrative every day. Is it any wonder that 16 of my classmates were viciously castigated, both in the press and at USMA itself, following the release of a photograph in which they displayed their pride as black women? Howard Zinn upheld the commitment that “you can’t be neutral on a moving train.” Never before have his words echoed in such a thunderous fashion. We thus come to a related historical problematic arising from choosing the side of emancipation in this matter: the vast majority of the founders of the United States were white, slaveowning, propertied males. For example, where does this place the legacy of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson? If you have chosen the side of liberation in this matter, then the answer becomes clear.

Symbolic victories are important. What happened in Durham was not just optics. It emboldened others to further the fight against the racist legacy of the Confederacy (and in turn, the United States). When we efface, topple, and destroy the monuments of oppression, we reach into the very mind of our subjugators and affirm our immovable presence. Our desires for equality and freedom requires collective action and work far beyond the scope of toppling monuments; but these small victories are still critical. I and many others have confronted the administration of USMA regarding the Confederate iconography for a number of years now. They continue to drag their feet. Enough is enough. Whether you are a soldier, cadet, or civilian, the judgment of history is upon us. To cling to an imagined objectivity or neutrality is to remain a coward. It is high time we come together and dismantle these racist structures, both in word, but more importantly, in deed. As for how we might carry out our endeavors, I believe that another West Point graduate sets the proper example: William Tecumseh Sherman — relentless, persistent action in the pursuit of victory. Until our demands are met, we continue the long march.

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Sinner's Prayer Of Repentance
“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to Your unfailing love;
according to Your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in Your sight,
so that You are proved right when You speak
and justified when You judge.
Surely I have been a sinner from birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me…
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me and I will be whiter than snow…
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from Your presence
or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
Then will I teach transgressors Your ways,
and sinners will turn back to You.
(Psalm 51, King David)

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Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens – Exodus 18:21